Italian Lottery Spreads to SMS Services
Telecom Italia Mobile, an Italian mobile phone company, and Italian lottery operator Lottomatica signed an agreement today that will enable TIM's customers to play the lottery via text messages on their mobile phones.
The new service is called "GiocaNumeri SMS" and can be used with a pre-paid Lottomatica card, which can be bought at Lotto shops.
AOL Delays Launch of New Version
America Online has been barred form distributing its AOL 6.0 software due to a possible copyright violation.
A federal court granted an injunction in light of allegations that the software uses Playmedia System's digital music encoding technology without permission.
The technology in question decodes digital audio files compressed in MP3 format and has been used in numerous applications, including Napster, to play digital audio files on personal computers. AOL subsidiary Nullsoft holds a software license from Playmedia for use in its Winamp MP3 player. However, the court found that by including the Playmedia code in a different media player, AOL exceeded the rights in its license.
Hold on .biz Names Lifted
A hold on the allocation of 58,000 domain names with ".biz" suffixes was lifted after a judgment against the registry operator was overturned in California court.
A court in California had ordered NeuLevel, the registry operator, to pay $1.6 million after Dave Smiley, a radio disc jockey with Skyscraper Productions of Los Angeles, filed suit against NeuLevel. The suit alleged that NeuLevel ran an illegal lottery when it allocated names claimed by trademark owners in advance of the public offer of .biz registrations. A higher court overturned the ruling.
When more than one party claimed trademark rights in a particular domain name, NeuLevel's plan was to allocate the name to a party chosen at random. This encouraged multiple applications from each party to increase the odds of success, hence the lottery allegation.
Because of the latest judgment, NeuLevel can legally distribute the claimed names as originally intended.
Committee Feels Public Should Have Less Influence with ICANN
The general public's influence on the body that oversees the Internet should be reduced, a committee headed by former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt recommended this week.
Such changes are required to avoid endless debate about the role and influence of the general Internet community on the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, Bildt said. One of his recommendations is that fees should be levied for the right to help choose ICANN's members.
Existing and other proposed methods for picking at-large directors are unworkable because of technological or political demands, he said.
ICANN, an organization formed by the U.S. government in 1998 to handle Internet address policies, makes decisions that ultimately affect how people reach Web sites and what domain names they can have.
The nine-member At-Large Membership Study Committee, created by the ICANN board earlier this year, recommends reducing at-large representation from one-half to one-third of the board seats.
In addition, individuals wishing to help select representatives would have to pay unspecified annual membership fees as well as own domain names, which typically cost about $30 a year.
EC Continuing Microsoft Probe
The European Commission said Monday it was continuing its probe into Microsoft Corp. even as the software giant moved closer to reaching an antitrust deal with U.S. authorities.
"The investigation is ongoing and in a preliminary stage,'' said European Union spokeswoman Amelia Torres.
The statement came as 18 states considered accepting a proposed settlement reached by Microsoft and the government. The case began in 1998 when the Department of Justice sued Microsoft, claiming the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant used its ubiquitous Windows operating system to stifle competitors.
The European Commission, which enforces E.U. rules, warned in August that it was undertaking its own investigation into whether Microsoft had violated antitrust laws by bundling its Media Player with Windows. The E.U. said Microsoft may have used illegal practices to extend its dominance in personal computers into server markets.
Adult Site Owners Pay Hefty Fines for False Ads
The owners of several adult entertainment Web sites have agreed to pay $30 million to settle charges that they fraudulently advertised services as free and then charged visitors monthly fees of between $20 and $90. The site also allegedly charged people who had never visited it.
In August 2000, the Federal Trade Commission and the New York attorney general filed a lawsuit against the owners of playgirl.com and 64 affiliated corporations running dozens of similar sites. The "Free Tour Web Sites" claimed that visitors' credit card numbers were required solely to prove that the visitors were of legal age to view the adult material and stated that the credit cards would not be billed. Visitors complained, however, that their cards were billed despite the representations.
Those who tried to dispute the charges were met with a variety of barriers designed by the site owners to thwart their efforts. According to the FTC, the site owners used billing names different from the names of the Web sites, so consumers often had no idea who was billing them or why--and contacting those behind the billing names proved very difficult.
The settlement requires those behind the scams to post bond set at $2 million for the corporations and $500,000 for each individual before they are allowed to continue to market adult entertainment on the Internet.